Saturday, January 12, 2008

Oh, Nick. At least you're not walking away empty handed. He may not have won the new car, but at least he got appointed to a public post at the Board of Public Utilities the day the lame-duck senator cast a critical vote for the governor's school-funding bill.

On the same day he was named to the post, Asselta voted in favor of Corzine’s controversial $7.8-billion school funding formula, which squeaked to victory in a 23-13 vote in the Senate when it needed a minimum 21 votes to pass. Asselta was one of only five Republicans to approve the measure.

And just to belay your fears that the administration was doing something dirty, Brady Abelow assures us that's not the case:

"We never talk about the process that we go through to get the talented people that we find," Abe low said. "I've got nothing more to say on this other than it had nothing to do with" the school funding vote.

Did I mention that Abelow will be making $125,000 a year in his new post. By comparison, his annual salary as a legislator was $49,000.

Well, the all-mighty Culinary Worker's Union has spoken from on high, bestowing Barack Obama with their all-powerful endorsement. This follows the smaller Nevada SEIU's endorsement of Obama earlier in the day.

Which means no love for John Edwards.

Hillary did manage to steal some of Obama's thunder in Nevada. U.S. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, who had pledged alongside Harry Reid not to endorse a candidate in the primary, did so just after the Culinary Union made its endorsement. Now, it comes as no surprise that Berkley is a Hillary supporter; one only needs to look at her campaign donations. But it definitely was her and the Clinton campaign's intention to steal some of Obama's thunder, and at least get a mention alongside Barack.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The Press of Atlantic City has an Associated Press report that The Wizard of Trenon will reveal his plan today to increase tolls on New Jersey's busiest highways by at least 50 percent every four years starting in 2010.

Corzine was set to unveil the plan later in the day during his afternoon State of the State address, but four Statehouse officials told The Associated Press Monday that tolls would increase 50 percent in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 under Corzine's proposal.

I'll most definitely have a cartoon on this later tonight (hopefully) so check back later and often after the Wizard's speech.

In Oregon, we don't really need a official debate in the Democratic Primary pitting Steve Novick against Jeff Merkley for US Senate. Their bickering and arguing back and forth should do the trick. It reminds me of the old Monty Python sketch, where the man goes to the building and pays to have an argument.

Everyone give a big fat hello to the newest member of the Politicker family, PolitickerAZ.com. Today's cartoon centers around Senate President Tim Bee and his "run" for congress.

Arizona has a Resign to Run law, which means simply that unless elected officials are in the last year of their term, they cannot run for another office without resigning. Bee has refused to step aside, waiting it out until 2008 when his term ends in order to side step the law. Of course, this is just accomplished by technicality rather than living up to the spirit of the law.

Here's a quote from Doug Thornell, Spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

“Tim Bee’s ongoing attempt to use his exploratory committee as a shield from Arizona’s Resign to Run law is fooling nobody. We’ve now learned that Tim Bee is holding posh campaign fundraisers to cozy-up to special interests, while still maintaining the farce that he is not using his Senate position as a tool to raise money for his congressional run."

PolitickerAZ.com reports that two small towns that traditionally lead-off the voting in New Hampshire stayed up late to give Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain early victories in the New Hampshire presidential primary.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

The school funding bill (as expected) made it's getaway out of the Senate and Assembly budget committees on Thursday, and it's ready for a vote by Sharpe James and the rest lame duck legislature on Monday.

Why is this bill such a crock? Well, for starters, fourteen amendments were added to the 100-plus page bill on Thursday. Some of those amendments are the results of incentives that had to be added by Corzine in order to gain approval from special interest groups and some of the urban legislators that have claimed that the bill doesn't do enough for poor inner-city schools, one of them being Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

According to PolitickerNJ.com, Healy claims that the school funding formula is just the latest example of Corzine's administration giving his city the cold shoulder:

“I’m received very well but I don’t get a god damn thing for our city…. So far this administration has not done a whole hell of a lot for the citizens of Jersey City."

Plus, the first chance the legislature got to see the bill was December 20th. Is 2 weeks enough time to read, analyze and debate a bill this important?

Art Gallagher over at More Monmouth Musings claims that the only way to pay for Corzine's increase in school spending is by postponing the debt service of $1.5 billion due next year, which will be done by paying off old debt with the new toll road debt, and other fiscal chicanery.

With the State of the State address coming on Tuesday, we'll see if the school funding bill gets pushed through, which I expect it will. That way, Corzine can begin to unleash his asset monetization scheme to pay for it.

Jon Corzine was in Las Vegas today to campaign on behalf of N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The governor met with campaign staff, volunteers and business leaders and helped open Clinton’s new campaign office in southwest Las Vegas.

I don’t know how New Hampshire’s going to turn out,” said Corzine. “We didn’t like, obviously, how it turned out in Iowa. But the fact is that there are a bunch of firewalls that are coming. Nevada needs to be one of those, because we’ve got to get to Feb. 5.”